NHSPS wins at Smarter Working Awards

This week I was delighted to accept, on behalf of the National Office Programme, the 'Efficiency in the Property Portfolio' award at the Smarter Working Live Awards. These awards recognise and celebrate outstanding public sector transformation, aligned with the Government's Smarter Working programme and creating a more agile working culture across the public sector. 

The specific project which won the award was our work at 120 The Broadway, in south London, where we identified an opportunity to reimagine office space that was occupied by various Clinical Commissioning Groups (CCGs) and a Commissioning Support Unit (CSU). There was much vacant and underutilised space across the floors we occupied, and so we took advantage of a lease break to consolidate and reconfigure the space so that it was more efficient and tailored to our occupiers' needs. The co-location of NHS organisations will encourage more agile and collaborative working, as well as saving £6 million for the NHS over five years which can be diverted to improving patient care elsewhere in the system. 

This is just one example of the support my team are offering the NHS across the country, as well as helping NHS Property Services itself develop a 'smarter' office estate to enable smarter working.

Offices make up a significant proportion of the NHS estate, with NHS Property Services (NHSPS) portfolio alone covering approximately 400 office holdings, spanning 400,000 sqm and serving multiple NHS bodies. We therefore have a huge opportunity (via proactive estate management) to create better working environments for NHS staff, to boost productivity and wellbeing via enabling smarter working and collaboration, and to drive efficiencies and system savings for the NHS. I'm hugely proud of the team who have so far delivered millions in savings for the NHS and transformed office environments across the NHS estate to encourage more agile and collaborative working across the system and wider public sector. 

It's fantastic to see the National Office Programme get industry recognition at such a crucial time for the team - with COVID-19 accelerating so much change in smarter working meaning we can rapidly building on the foundations we have lain in the past few years. As NHS Property Services strives to help the NHS get the best of its estate to enable excellent patient care, I think it will prove to be a cornerstone of our future business as we adapt to and drive changes in the NHS estate.

If you'd like to learn more about the National Office Programme and our smarter working journey, please visit our hub page or get in touch with the team.